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Tuesday, May 11, 2010

About the Book: This official illustrated tie-in book showcases over 350 spectacular images from the DreamWorks Animation feature film, based on Cressida Cowell’s popular children’s book.

How to Train Your Dragon is the story of a scrawny teenaged Viking, Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third, who lives on the island of Berk in the North Sea. Hiccup is a member of a Viking tribe and wants to make his father, the chief, proud of him. Entering dragon training, Hiccup has a chance to prove his worthiness to his tribe and father. But then, in a world where Dragons and Vikings do not coexist peacefully, Hiccup encounters and ultimately befriends an injured dragon, at which point his world is turned upside down.

The Art of How to Train Your Dragon is a spectacularly designed, full-color insider’s guide to the creative process that went into turning Cressida Cowell’s popular book into a feature-length, animated film. Featuring more than 350 pieces of development artwork, including early character designs, story sketches, and concept paintings never before released by the studio, the book provides an in-depth look at the process involved in bringing mythical Dragon and Viking worlds to life.Our Take: How To Train Your Dragon is a huge box office hit. It has managed to bridge that all too huge gap between a kids book and the big screen. Dreamworks really needed this film to do well too, as its not been doing the best compared to other studios, like Disney / Pixar.

The film is fantastic, colorful and fun. Now, we're off from the theater and looking for companion books to enjoy. We've read the actual book, so now what? Well, we get the Art of How to Train Your Dragon, which is really a journey through the visual world of creating an animated masterpiece!

I expected an art book, but I was really impressed by the sheer amount of cool production art and pre-production art. The variety in the styles of dragons inside is really cool. We get tons of backrounds and sketches, not to mention a lot of full-color images. This is a great hardcover art book and well worth the money. How to Buy:Amazon.com or the Newmarket Press Site